Keeping an accurate inventory of all the networking devices a company or any other organization has is a difficult task. In the presence of mobile computing devices, such as personal digital assistants (PDAs) or laptops, the task becomes even more difficult.
A possible solution for identifying mobile computing devices is to install a service program on the device itself which can send out information about the device and its properties to a central server. However, such service programs can in principle be switched off by the user. Additional installation and maintenance effort is involved.
As an alternative, the user log on process could be run via a central registration mechanism. However, installation and maintenance efforts are also high for such a registration mechanism, as well as all devices would have to be told to register with this particular machine.
“VitalQIP™ Registration Manager 2.1”, retrieved and accessed on the Internet using the address for the page found at www.lucent.com/livelink/090094038003cebb_Brochure_datasheet.pdf as of Aug. 5, 2003, introduces an address management tool which enables an association between a device user and the MAC (Machine Access Code) address. The system automatically captures the device's MAC address each time a user requests an address via DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) in order to provide an approved address. In a first step, as the user registers the associated MAC address is automatically captured and stored in the user's profile.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,884,024 shows a DHCP server comprising several security features. “Amulet: Approximate Mobile User Location Tracking System”, Blake M. Harris, retrieved and accessed on the Internet using the address for the page found at darkfate.com/bmh/other/pubs/Amulet.pdf, as of Aug. 5, 2003, introduces a mechanism to track wireless LAN users. The real time signal strength from all available access points is mapped against a data base containing signal strength distributions for different geographical areas.
“The Business Case for Directory-Centric IP Resource Management”, Irwin Lazar, retrieved and accessed on the Internet using the address www2.dc.net/ilazar/ldap.pdf, as of Aug. 5, 2003, discusses the deployment of directories to help manage network resources such as user information and address assignments.
Accordingly, it is desired to provide a method, an apparatus, and a computer program element for detecting a mobile property of a computing device connectable to a data network without the necessity to change existing network access mechanisms and without the necessity to amend devices for delivering the desired information.